“Who do you prefer: King George III or Keir Starmer?”

Pam, resplendent in a purple-feathered bonnet and gown, grimaces. “Now that’s a hard one.”

The Big Issue visited Bath’s Jane Austen Festival in mid-September to quiz Regency re-enactors with this type of hard-hitting question.

This year – the 250th anniversary of the author’s birth – more than 3,000 ‘Janeites’ descended upon the city. Attendees paid tribute to the beloved author with a suite of high teas, balls and Georgian dance lessons.

We wanted to know: what do these Regency re-enactors love about the past – and could any Georgian ideas offer solutions to modern Britain?

At the festival’s Grand Promenade, we began to get some answers.

“If I had to choose, I’d choose to live now. But I think life was simpler then,” says Karen

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